Is drilling off N.C. worth the gamble?

The chance to increase the oil supply is being weighed against the inevitable changes to the ecology and economy of the state's coast

WASHINGTON - If offshore drilling were approved sometime in the future, the Tar Heel state's coastal landscape would almost certainly change.

North Carolina remains one of the East Coast's longest and most undeveloped coastlines: strung with 300 miles of barrier island beaches; home to a national park; and cushioned by sensitive marshlands that protect against floods, cater to two-thirds of the state's vulnerable species and nurse the young populations of shrimp, blue crabs and fish.

Although current legislation would keep rigs at least 50 miles offshore, there would likely be onshore industry to go along with the drilling.

Pipelines would come bumping across the barrier islands, and oil or natural gas processing plants would be built on shore, possibly in the bustling industrial center of Norfolk, Va., but possibly near North Carolina port towns such as Wilmington or Morehead City.

While the danger of oil spills from rigs has been greatly reduced in recent decades, plenty of other environmental challenges remain should North Carolina welcome the industry in the coming decades.

"You're basically imposing a major petroleum industrial activity in the ocean and along the shoreline," said Warren Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy, a national advocacy group.

Tourists might never see the drilling platforms working far beyond the horizon. Under current proposals in Washington, drilling would have to occur at least 50 miles offshore.

But the oil or natural gas -- or probably both -- would have to come onshore somehow. Pipelines are cheapest. Onshore factories would likely follow.

So what are the environmental risks? The answer, in part, depends on the state's oversight, say experts in North Carolina and elsewhere.

"With sound and solid and consistent state management, offshore drilling should be feasible off North Carolina," said Orrin Pilkey, a Duke University geologist and frequent critic of state coastal land management.

"It's going to be important, but it's going to be difficult," he said. "All we need to do is look at Louisiana."

In the boot-shaped Pelican State, the oil industry has been operating since the early 20th century. There, drilling rigs, oil refineries and gas plants scatter the landscape near the state's coastline, forming a ribbon from Texas to Mississippi.

Tens of thousands of engineers, technicians, truck drivers and support workers toil in the state's refineries and oil transportation system.

Louisiana welcomes oil tankers from foreign countries into its refineries and is home to three of the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserves.

Rigs can be seen from the shoreline. About 8,200 miles of canals slice through the marshes -- troughs dug for oil pipelines that have led to the destruction of 25 square miles of wetlands a year.

"We're more efficient, less disruptive, but I don't that there's anything that can be done that's vastly different from the way we're transporting oil and gas now," said Bill Delmar, assistant director of the Louisiana oil and gas agency's Technology Assessment Division, which compiles data on drilling in the state.

"It's a fairly simple process, and when you get that simple, it's tough to change," Delmar said.

Louisiana, which has asked for billions of dollars from the federal government for its cleanup efforts, is a major player in the nation's energy production industry.

In 2001, the state produced 502 million barrels of oil, about 85 percent of the total pulled from the nation's offshore drilling operation.

"It's ugly," said Lawrence Cahoon, a marine biologist for UNC-Wilmington. "The oil industry dominates things in Louisiana."